Your body responds to changes in your psychological state; like stress. This can cause new skin issues to develop or existing skin issues to flare up. When we feel stressed, our sympathetic nervous system releases stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline into your body.
Stress can cause inflammation through the gut-skin connection. Internal inflammation can present acne, eczema and psoriasis.
How Stress Can Affect Our Skin:
1. The stress hormone cortisol leads to an overproduction of sebum (oil) in our skin glands, which causes acne breakouts.
2. Stress impacts our immune system, causing skin to be more reactive and sensitive triggering rashes, hives, and redness.
3. Stress exacerbates existing inflammatory skin conditions like eczema, psoriasis, and rosacea, leading to flare ups.
4 Hacks to Combat Stressed Skin
• EAT an anti-inflammatory/anti-oxidant rich diet. Including a RAINBOW of 8 vegetables daily, include good quality fats like avocado, nuts, seeds, lean protein and complex carbohydrates that are naturally gluten free.
• MEDITATE to glowing skin. You don’t have to become a monk but find something that brings calm and balance back to your nervous system. Deep breathing, sensory meditation, stretching. The aim is to reduce the impact of inflammatory response by calming that response tf down!
• OMEGA 3’s help the body to produce anti-inflammatory compounds which can reduce the symptoms of inflammatory skin conditions.
• ICE FACE BATH therapy, this is a form of cold water exposure to help release those feel good hormones but also will calm surface inflammation.
